


What to say when it's all over

by Idicted



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Hurt, Hurt Spock (Star Trek), Hurt!Spock, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Self-Sacrifice, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 19:28:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15031640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idicted/pseuds/Idicted
Summary: When Spock must evacuate an unconscious Kirk, Sulu, Uhura and Chekhov from the bridge of the Enterprise, he manages to save everyone but himself. It is up to McCoy to piece together what happened and to save Spock before it's too late.





	What to say when it's all over

**Author's Note:**

> I have been reading amazing TOS fan fiction on this platform for years and have decided to finally try my hand at writing something. Apologies for any mistakes regarding the anatomy of the Enterprise and of course the medical talk is all mumbo jumbo... Hope you enjoy!

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

_What do I do when lightning strikes me and I wake to find that you're not there?_

          - Elton John

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Spock opened his eyes to find the bridge of the Enterprise sparsely illuminated by emergency lighting, the red alert beacons still flashing. Thick smoke hung in the air, forcing him to cough painfully as he tried to sit up and get his bearings.

 

Save the ringing in his ears, the bridge was eerily silent and once he had managed to pull himself upright with the help of the railing, Spock could see that it was also apparently unmanned. All stations, including the captain’s chair, were deserted.

 

Steadying himself against the wave of nausea and dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him, he groggily looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened. At the back of his mind he was aware he should be worried that he did not remember immediately and that it took him so long to understand what his eyes were seeing. But then he did understand and all other thoughts were lost in a sense of panic. Through the haze he spotted the captain lying motionlessly to the left of the navigation console.

 

Spock made his way over to Kirk, staggering and almost falling, but catching himself and finally dropping to his knees at Jim’s side. He gripped the human’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. Weak but steady. Spock let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. His gaze drifted to the front of the bridge where he spotted two more lifeless figures: Sulu and Chekov. He tried to stand up but his knees were shaking with the effort and so he crawled over to them. They, too, were alive, though Sulu was bleeding from a deep gash on his temple.

 

Spock tucked at his own uniform shirt in order to rip off a piece of fabric to stem the bleeding with, only to discover that the left side of his shirt was already soaked with blood. Green blood. _Curious_ , Spock thought, touching his hand to head and discovering it came away sticky with blood. A head injury explained why he was thinking so slowly. He forced his attention back to the Enterprise’s pilot, opting to use some material from Sulu’s own shirt to dress the wound. Once he had made a makeshift bandage for the cut, he pulled himself up with the help of the navigation console and staggered back to the captain’s chair.

 

“Bridge to Doctor McCoy,” Spock rasped, coughing again as the smoke still hung heavily in the air. No response. “Spock to sickbay.” Again, no response. “First Officer to crew. If you receive this, please acknowledge.” He waited. Nothing.

 

Spock turned around and slowly made his way to the communications station. He found Lieutenant Uhura wedged in between her station and her seat, unconscious but still breathing. He chided himself for not checking on her earlier. Who else was on the bridge, lying hidden somewhere in the smoke? As First Officer he should know at all times who was on bridge duty. Spock tried to remember. No, it had been just the five of them on the bridge. Parker had gone down to the phaser banks and Resky had been sent to Engineering.

 

More memories came back. They had been engaged in a fight with an unknown vessel that had attacked a Federation outpost. The Enterprise had chased it for a while and had caught up with it eventually, engaging it in a fight. The Enterprise had soon had the upper hand in the battle, though they had taken a couple of hits, and as their adversary’s weapons systems were not as advanced as the Enterprise’s, Kirk had had Uhura open a channel, asking them to surrender rather than risk destruction. It had seemed as though their opponent was going to comply, powering down his weapons and slowly advancing towards them without shields. Spock remembered he had been scanning the ship when he had detected an energy surge in the unknown ship’s systems. _I should have reacted more quickly_ , Spock thought. Before he could warn Kirk, everything had gone black.

 

_They must have self-destructed_ , Spock realized while fumbling with the controls on Uhura’s station. He repeated his call to sickbay and tried ship-wide again, but clearly, communications were down. This was bad, he realized, potentially fatal. With the entire bridge crew out of commission and himself, while conscious, in no fit state to command (not that he would have admitted this to Dr McCoy had he asked), the Enterprise was drifting in space, he knew not how badly damaged, vulnerable to renewed attack.

 

Spock steadied himself against the console.  _Emergency protocol D._ _In case of failure of internal communications, any survivor of an incident must be ready to perform all tasks necessary for the continued functioning of the ship and survival of the crew. Any survivor finding himself alone among dead or injured shipmates must work under the assumption that no one else is at hand to perform the necessary tasks. Tasks are to be prioritised in the following order: Security and defence, triage and medical intervention, repairs._

 

Spock moved back to the navigations console. Taking a look at Chekhov’s station, he noticed that shields were only at 15%. Rerouting emergency power to shields he raised them to 80%. At Sulu’s station he calculated and laid in a course for the nearest Starbase. It took him twice as long as it should have. All they had was Impulse power and they would reach the station only in two days’ time, but this was the best he could do for now. Finally, using his Command code, he rerouted command functions to auxiliary control. The bridge needed to be evacuated, the smoke was getting thicker and the air harder to breathe. He needed to get to auxiliary control himself and ideally hand command over to Mr Scott – _if Mr Scott is in better shape than I am_ , Spock thought.

 

His mind briefly went to Scott, McCoy, the whole crew whom he could not contact and whose condition he had no way of ascertaining, but he quickly shoved this thought away. It was illogical to dwell on things one could not know or change. Turning back to the situation he _could_ control, at least to an extent, Spock dragged his four unconscious crewmates over to the turbolift doors and placed them into the recovery position, one after the other. Exhausted, he pressed the turbolift call button.

 

After several attempts (illogical, he thought idly, Einstein had noted hundreds of years ago that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) no lift appeared and the doors remained firmly closed. He felt fear rising in his chest. He needed to evacuate Kirk, Uhura, Sulu and Chekhov. Since he had first checked on them, their breathing had become flatter and more laboured as the smoke had gotten denser. Spock himself had more and more trouble breathing, especially under the strain of dragging his unresponsive shipmates’ bodies around the bridge.

 

Spock took a moment to collect himself. He was Vulcan. Endurance was a thing of the mind. His friends needed him. He keyed the override code into the lift’s door panel. The doors slid open a couple of centimetres. Spock gripped the left door tightly and forced it all the way open. Panting and coughing, he peered into the turbolift shaft.

 

The lift was resting two decks below, which made a drop of 32 meters. To get to sickbay, Spock would have had to climb five decks lower, so this route was closed to him. _No matter_ , he thought, understanding that in his current condition, he would probably not be able to make a five deck climb carrying an unconscious human, much less be able to make such a journey four times. The most logical option, he decided, was to carry the others down only one deck and from there attempt to get them to sickbay via the Jefferies tubes, preferably with the help of other crew members.

 

Spock checked the humans’ breathing again. Sulu’s was decidedly the worst. He would take him first, but the very first trip he had to make alone as he would have to open the door leading to the next deck. Carefully, the swung himself onto the ladder leading down the turbolift shaft. His arms and legs were shaking but he concentrated on the task at hand and soon was keying in another override. This time, the door opened all the way on its own accord; the corridor behind it was deserted.

 

Spock stepped out of the shaft and tried the intercom panel on the wall next to the lift. Nothing. He briefly debated whether he should start walking and try to find some crew members to help him evacuate the bridge crew. No. There was no time. The air on the bridge was getting worse by the minute. Spock climbed back into the shaft and up to the bridge.

 

Now that he was standing above Sulu’s prone form it dawned on Spock that his own head injury really had to be quite severe: he had completely neglected to develop a plan on how to carry his friends without the help of a harness. A fireman’s life was out of the question. Spock needed at least one arm to climb the ladder and without two arms holding him in place, Sulu – and the others – would simply slip off Spock’s back and fall down the turbolift shaft. Spock shuddered.

 

He would have to balance them on his chest, then. He hauled Sulu up so that his head was nestled against Spock’s neck and his torso was lying on Spock’s chest. This meant, Spock knew, that he would have to make a hollow back while climbing down the shaft to prevent his charge from slipping off. Slowly, carefully, he stepped onto the ladder, adjusting Sulu’s position and then began a slow descent. When he finally reached the door to the deck 24 and had manoeuvred Sulu onto the floor, his body was shaking from strain and exhaustion.

 

Spock allowed himself a brief moment to regain his breath. Once the shaking had subsided, he placed Sulu back into the recovery position and proceeded up the ladder to collect Uhura. His muscles screamed in protest as he was carrying her dead weight down the shaft, but he managed to lay her out neatly next to Sulu. Chekhov was next and after Spock had towed him to safety, he felt so weak and exhausted he thought he might pass out then and there.

 

Only one thought kept him going: _Jim_. Spock had told himself that he was prioritising the rescue of his friends according to how erratic their breathing had become and that, were Jim conscious, he would insist on being taken last. The truth was, there was not much of a difference between Uhrura’s, Chekhov’s and Jim’s breathing and it would be more logical to save the captain first. But Spock had been afraid that, had he left anyone else for last, he would not have gone back again. Leaving Jim was not an option. And so he forced himself up the ladder one last time.

 

Jim was heavier than the other three, Spock thought. Or was this simply his impression because he was feeling more and more exhausted? No, Jim was decidedly heavier. The smoke on the bridge had become so dense that Spock had hardly been able to see the captain on the floor and now the smoke followed them down the turbolift shaft, causing Spock to cough and the captain to slide dangerously to the side. Spock stopped in his tracks and readjusted his burden with once hand, gripping the ladder tightly with the other. When Jim was once again secure against his chest, Spock began this descent anew but in his exhaustion missed a step and slipped.

 

In the last second, Spock was able to prevent disaster, pressing his whole body against the ladder. Jim, now dangling at Spock’s hip, moaned. Spock needed the captain to not wake up finding himself dangling above a 20 metre drop with only his First Officer’s bent knees keeping him from falling. Spock dragged Kirk back into position and hurried to close the remaining four metres to the door that would bring them to safety.

 

With his right foot still on the ladder and his left already on the ledge of the door to deck 24, he finally felt his strength leaving him. _No_ , Spock thought. _Not yet_. And with one strong push of his left arm he unceremoniously hauled Jim to safety, wincing at the thought of the hard landing the captain would experience, but not actually seeing Jim’s body land crumbled beside the neatly arranged bodies of Sulu, Uhura and Chekhov, because he was falling. _I should have made sure Jim is safe…_ was Spock’s last thought before he knew no more. 

  

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Leonard McCoy had witnessed his share of emergencies aboard the Enterprise. He had seen grave injuries, dangerous illnesses and more death than he cared to think about. But never – _never_ – had he had a day like this.

 

When the Enterprise had first received some hits from the other ship, McCoy had gotten sickbay ready, expecting the odd injury or two, though, by his standards, this was really not too bad. McCoy had had to reverse his judgement once the big hit came. As opposed to what he now estimated to be at least 85% of the crew, he had not hit his head and passed out as a result of the Enterprise being tipped over into a 90 degree angle and then falling back into her previous position. He had had a lucky escape landing comparatively softly, though not painlessly, on one of the sickbay beds.

 

Cursing and shouting for his nurses to quickly clean up the equipment scattered all over sickbay before the first patients came in, he had rounded the corner to the main treatment room only to find all his staff, save nurse Limmers, passed out with head wounds and broken bones. They had been the first people he’d treated, giving them neuro-stimulants rather than letting their concussions heal naturally as a stream of people with broken bones and radiation burns began pouring into sickbay.

 

Between the bone knitter and the radiation chamber, McCoy had learned that they had lost both ship-wide communications and the warp core and gave up on his plan to call the bridge to ask what the hell was going on. Anyway, he assumed they were okay up there, otherwise someone would have come to get him. Plus, around half an hour after the incident, McCoy could feel the hum of the Impulse engines. The were going somewhere, so someone was still giving commands.

 

McCoy had had to send out mobile medical teams all over the ship to get to hundreds of unconscious crewmembers, all concussed, some bleeding, some more broken bones. Neuro-stimulants all around. He didn’t like it but he understood that the ship could not function without the majority of her crew.

 

After about an hour of absolute mayhem in sickbay, he packed a medical kit and headed out into the corridors of the Enterprise himself to find any crew members who might still be unconscious and in need of help. He found two on his way to the turbolift (two concussions, one sprained wrist) before he ran into Scotty who was distributing hand held communicators to anyone he could find.

 

“Good thinking, Scotty,” McCoy acknowledged as Scott handed him a communicator. “Hear anything from the captain?”

 

“Nae, doctor,” Scott sounded concerned. “Turbolift one is out of order. ‘Tis stuck at deck 23. My lads are trying to fix it, but in the meantime if ye wan’ tae get up to the bridge, yer gonna have tae take the Jeffries tubes up to deck 24 and then climb the turbolift shaft. I guess the captain and the others are stuck up there for now.” Scott looked apologetic.

 

“Climb up the shaft, Scotty?” McCoy asked indignantly. “I’m a doctor, not a mountaineer.”

 

But perhaps, McCoy thought, Kirk and Spock had climbed down. And the Jeffries tubes were really not so bad. “I will go check out deck 24, Scotty,” McCoy said, turning around as Scott replied “Aye, and if ye need anything, call in,” waving his communicator.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

On his way to deck 24 McCoy had helped nine more concussed crew members. _Better stock up on neuro-stimulants when we get to the next Starbase_ , McCoy thought. He was just rounding the corner of the corridor leading to turbolift one and immediately stopped in his tracks. Nearest to him, Sulu was lying on the floor, his face turned towards McCoy in textbook recovery position, next to him Uhura and next to her Chekhov, both in the same position, with Jim lying messily across Chekhov’s legs, closest to the open doors of the turbolift shaft. _Where’s Spock?,_ McCoy briefly wondered.

 

The doctor was at Kirk’s side in seconds, medical scanner whirring. Concussion, and chemical burns to the lungs. Same for the others, only Sulu had an additional deep gash to the head which had been provisionally bandaged.

 

“McCoy to Scott,” the doctor spoke into his communicator, calmly but pressingly.

 

“Scott here.”

 

“Scotty, I need four stretchers and men to carry them at turbolift one on deck 24, on the double.”

 

Without waiting for Scott to acknowledge, McCoy turned back to Kirk and gave him a stimulant. Jim opened his eyes almost immediately.

 

“Bones,” he slurred, then coughed, trying to sit up, only to have McCoy gently press him back down. “What happened?”

 

“You passed out, Jim. I need to take you to sickbay, you inhaled some acid smoke.”

 

“The others?” Kirk wheezed. Where are…?”

 

“They’re fine, Jim. Did you carry them down here? Pretty damn impressive I must say,” the doctor smiled at his friend.

 

“I… no… I don’t think…” Kirk mumbled.

 

“Shhh, Jim, no need to talk till we’ve taken care of those lungs. Just one thing though, where’s…” McCoy didn’t finish the thought as Scott and seven security guards came towards them, stretchers ready.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It hadn’t been easy carrying the bridge crew to sickbay but once there, treatment was pretty straightforward. Painkillers, neuro-stimulants for the concussion, steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs and tri-ox for the lungs and a dermal regenerator for Sulu’s gash. Still a little groggy, but as good as new, McCoy thought.

 

Kirk was already sitting up in bed, scanning the mess that was sickbay with his eyes. “Bones, where’s Spock?” he asked anxiously.

 

“I was gonna ask you the same thing earlier, Jim” McCoy replied, a feeling of unease beginning to creep up on him.

 

“How should I know?” Jim asked, “I’ve been unconscious for what you tell me were about three hours.”

 

“So you didn’t carry the others down the shaft?” McCoy asked.

 

Kirk shook his head, regretting the movement immediately. He was still feeling dizzy.

 

“The last thing I remember is the unknown ship powering down weapons and coming towards us.”

 

“So Spock must have carried the four of you from the bridge. I thought it was you because Sulu, Uhura and Chekhov were placed into recovery position and only you were lying there as if you’d just fallen. I wonder why Spock didn’t bother to place you into the recovery position and why he didn’t come find me… Maybe he’s concussed too and wandering around the ship somewhere.”

 

Kirk shrugged helplessly, then grabbed McCoy’s communicator.

 

“Kirk to Scott.”

 

“Scott here, captain, good to hear yer voice.”

 

“Thanks, Scotty. Listen, I’m looking for Mr Spock. Please let everyone know they should contact me or sickbay if they see him.”

 

“Yes, sir. And sir? I was just in auxiliary control, transfer of command functions was successful. I’m at turbolift one now, repairs are almost complete. Scott out.”

 

Turning to McCoy, Kirk said: “Bones, let’s go looking for him. It’s not like Spock to just disappear.”

 

“Jim, you shouldn’t be put of bed yet. You’re recovering from…” McCoy trailed off, a terrible possibility suddenly looming large in his mind.

 

“Bones? Bones, what is it?” Kirk had gotten up, peering anxiously at his suddenly silent friend.

 

“Come with me, Jim,” McCoy said, grabbing an emergency medical kit and practically running towards the door.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In his still weakened state Kirk was struggling to keep up with the doctor’s pace. They had climbed all the way back up to deck 24, with the doctor, who was usually not too keen on exercise, silently and swiftly leading the way.

 

“Bones, where are we going?” Kirk asked. “You think he went back to the bridge? Scotty says command functions have been transferred to auxiliary control…”

 

McCoy gave Kirk a pained look. “Jim, when I found you, I thought you had rescued the others because you were the only one not in recovery position. I thought this meant you had saved them and collapsed from the effort. But if it was Spock who rescued all of you, what if _he_ collapsed from the effort?”

 

“But he wasn’t there with us. You think he walked away and collapsed somewhere?” Jim’s tone was worried.

 

McCoy took a deep breath. “No, I don’t think we walked away, I should have checked earlier, but I wasn’t thinking. God, please let this not be real, this is all my fault. I noticed he wasn’t there but I didn’t think to look…”

 

“Bones, what are you talking about?”

 

“I think… I think he’s in the shaft, Jim. I think he fell.” McCoy swallowed hard and Kirk’s eyes widened in horrified understanding.

 

They had arrived in front of turbolift one. The doors to the shaft were still open.

 

McCoy took another deep breath and peered down through the opening. Around 15 metres down he could make out a blue uniform shirt, covered in a lot of green. McCoy’s mind reeled for a moment, then doctor mode kicked in. He was about to swing himself onto the ladder leading down the shaft when Kirk grabbed his arm.

 

“Bones, stop.” Kirk’s face was ghostly pale, his hand shaky but his grip nevertheless tight.

 

“Let me go, Jim. I need to help him.” McCoy tried to shake off the captain’s hand.

 

“Yes, Bones, yes. But the lift… Scotty said repairs were almost complete.”

 

McCoy suddenly understood. If Scott got the lift moving and went up to the bridge, anyone who was standing or lying on top of it, as Spock currently was, would be crushed.

 

“Kirk to Scott,” the captain had grabbed McCoy’s communicator and was speaking urgently.

 

“Scott here, captain. We just finished repairs on turbolift one and are about to go get a good look at the bri…”

 

“NO!” both Kirk and McCoy interrupted him.

 

“Scotty, don’t you move that lift even one inch,” Kirk commanded, his voice strained.

 

“Aye, captain, but I thought…”

 

“Actually Scotty,” McCoy cut in, “can you move it really slowly and bring it up so far that the top is level with the floor of deck 24?”

 

“Aye, doctor, but I don’t understand…”

 

“Do it now!” Kirk said

 

“Aye, captain.”

 

Kirk and McCoy watched as the lift shuddered to life and slowly moved towards them. As Spock’s prone form came closer and closer, McCoy could see that not only his uniform shirt was drenched in green blood, his head was also surrounded by a pool of green. Spock’s face looked ashen against the blood surrounding it and his left leg was bent at an unnatural angle.

 

As the still form of his First Officer came to rest at his feet, Kirk had to swallow back tears.

 

“Bones,” he whispered, “please tell me he’s not… he’s not…”

 

McCoy was already waving his medical scanner over Spock’s body. After a tense few seconds he reported: “He’s alive, Jim. But he’s in a really bad way. Skull fracture, concussion and swelling to the brain, several broken ribs and a pneumothorax, same chemical burns to the lungs you had, except much more severe, internal bleeding, broken leg, broken wrist…”

 

Kirk, still clutching his communicator, suddenly felt a dizzy spell hit him. Crouching down on the floor he tried to breathe deeply.

 

“Jim,” McCoy said, seeing Kirk’s distress. “Jim, don’t you faint on me now. I need your help to stabilize him. Now that the lift is working and we can get him to sickbay quickly, he might still have a chance.”

 

Pulling himself together, Kirk nodded and stood up. Spock had saved his life, now he would try to help do the same for him.

 

McCoy had already applied a neck brace and emptied several hypos into Spock’s arm. “Painkiller, stimulant, tri-ox…,” he mumbled, concentrating on giving the right doses for Spock’s hybrid physiology. “We can move him now,” McCoy announced, spreading an emergency blanket on the floor outside the turbolift shaft. “No, shit.” McCoy looked at Kirk. “I need to straighten his leg first, otherwise we won’t get him out of there.” _I shouldn’t have given him the stimulant first_ , McCoy chided himself silently. _This will be so painful, it might wake him up_. Too late. Spock needed to get to sickbay now, there was no other way.

 

Kirk watched as McCoy grabbed Spock’s leg and with a sickening popping and churning sound straightened the broken appendage. As he did so, Spock’s eyes flew open and he gasped, then coughed painfully.

 

“Spock…” Kirk knelt down beside his friend, tears stinging his eyes. Spock looked at Kirk, his eyes unfocussed. “The captain”, he rasped, “Jim, where is Jim?”

 

“Spock,” Kirk stammered, “I’m here. I’m right here.”

 

But Spock didn’t seem to understand. “Jim,” he repeated. “Where is Jim? I dropped him. I couldn’t… I should have…but I dropped him…” And with that his head lolled to the side, unconsciousness reclaiming him.

 

Kirk felt tears on his cheeks and McCoy gave him a sympathetic look. “Come on, Jim. Help me out here.”

 

Together they carefully pulled Spock off the turbolift and onto the blanket.

 

“McCoy to Scott. Bring the lift up to deck 24 now,” McCoy said, then switched channels. “McCoy to sickbay. Nurse Chapel meet us at turbolift one with a gurney, stat.”

 

At that moment, Scotty’s face, then his whole body, appeared in front of them. Scott took one look at the scene before him and, understanding immediately, helped them carry the blanket with Spock on it into the turbolift. “Sickbay,” Scott commanded, after deciding that the captain, who was kneeling next to Spock holding his hand, was in no state to give orders.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Kirk was pacing. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for pacing in auxiliary control. Scott and the engineering crew were conducting repairs on the bridge, meanwhile, Kirk had decided ne needed to work. McCoy had rushed Spock to surgery over three hours ago. First, Kirk had been pacing in sickbay, but there he had gotten in the way of the nurses who were trying to return sickbay to a state of normality after the day’s events. He had decided to take over in auxiliary control and had found Sulu, Chekhov and Uhura already there, though it was not their shift.  He had nodded to them in understanding but hadn’t been able to sit still. There was not much to do for him anyway. Scott had made sure earlier that no enemy vessels were following them and they remained on course to Starbase 6, which Spock must have laid in before evacuating them from the bridge.

 

“I don’t understand how he managed it,” piped up Chekhov from his station. Clearly, everyone had only one thing on their minds right now, Kirk thought.

 

“He carried all of us down that ladder,” Chekhov continued in awe.

 

“Well, Mr Chekhov, as Mr Spock would point point to you right about now, he possesses superior Vulcan strength,” Kirk allowed a smile to tuck at his lips before he remembered Spock’s pale face, his twisted limbs on the roof of the lift.

 

“Doctor McCoy said if we’d stayed in the smoke for another hour, the damage to our lungs would have been permanent,” Uhura added. “Two more hours and we would have been dead. He saved our lives.”

 

“We should have helped search for him once we were feeling better.” Sulu looked around at his friends, summing up what they were all thinking. “I can’t believe he saved us and we just abandoned him down there.”

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  

Whenever he had to treat Spock, McCoy was amazed at the Vulcan’s strength and resilience. This time was no exception. After scanning Spock thoroughly, he realized that the Vulcan had already had a concussion and the head wound that had stained the front of this uniform shirt when he had rescued Jim and the others. _To have carried four people in that state must have been painful and exhausting beyond belief_ , McCoy thought. Yet, Spock had managed it. What he had not managed though, was to save himself and right now McCoy still wasn’t sure he’d be able to save Spock either. Too many broken bones, broken ribs piecing the left lung, too many bleeders, too much swelling.

 

Vulcans had scarily low blood pressure anyway, McCoy thought, but this was something else. No wonder, most of Spock’s blood was no longer in his arteries, most of it was somewhere in his internal organs, where it definitely didn’t belong. McCoy sent Chapel for another bag of T-negative.

 

He had prioritised the swelling of the brain and the multiple bleeders, now after four hours, we was finally ready to move on to the many broken bones and, most importantly, the ribs sticking into Spock’s lung, when the monitors suddenly started beeping violently.

 

“Doctor, his blood pressure is dropping, heart beat irregular,” announced Chapel who had just come back with the blood. Then, the heart monitor went into a shrill monotonous beep. Cardiac arrest.

 

_Shit_. McCoy abandoned his surgical instruments and started manual CPR. He was already hands deep into Spock’s abdomen, his now still heart just a hand’s breadth away. “Get the cardio stimulator, nurse!”

 

McCoy tried the stimulator as Chapel increased the flow of oxygen over the respirator attached to the First Officer’s face. _Nothing_.

 

He tried again. _Nothing_.

 

“Come on Spock,” McCoy pressed out from behind gritted teeth. “Don’t do this to me. I need you to make it, I need my stupid mistake to not cost you your life… Hell, I need to be able to tell you I’m sorry.”

 

_There_. _A sinus rhythm_. McCoy dropped the stimulator. Chapel was staring at him and he realized he was crying. He let out a long breath.

 

“Nurse,” he swallowed. “Wipe my face, please. Let’s carry on.”

  

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“McCoy to auxiliary control.”

 

Kirk jumped at the doctor’s voice. “Kirk here.”

 

“Jim, if you want you can come down to sickbay now.” McCoy sounded exhausted.

 

Kirk was halfway out the door when he turned around.

 

“Autopilot, Mr Sulu. Come on, everybody.”

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

They were standing around Spock’s bed in the intensive care ward. The bridge crew looked at the First Officer with shocked expressions. Spock’s body was still encased by the surgical sterile field, his pale face partially obscured by a respirator, the monitor above his bed showing that his bio signals were low.

 

“Bones…” Kirk finally managed to speak. “This is not… he is not… he’s not okay.”

 

McCoy looked at Kirk, a pained expression on his face.

 

“Jim, I’m sorry. We were fours hours into the surgery when he went into cardiac arrest. I managed to get his heart going again but he’s not strong enough to withstand anything more right now. I’m keeping him under the sterile field so his body can rest but I dare not open him up again. I did all I could, I did my best…” McCoy mumbled, eyes cast down.

 

“Your _best_?” Kirk was suddenly furious. All the tension, the fear, the uncertainty and pain of the day needed an outlet and he rounded on the doctor.

 

“That’s your _best_?” he pointed at what was visible of Spock below the machines keeping him alive. “I brought the others down here because I thought he’d be awake, so they could thank him, so _I_ could thank him, for all that he’s done for us – not to watch him die.” Kirks voice broke but he quickly recovered both it and his anger.

 

“He didn’t give up on us when we were lying up there and you’re just giving up on him, _doctor_?” Kirk spat the word angrily. “Or did you in fact give up on him a long time ago, is that why you didn’t immediately wonder where he was when you found us? Could you just not be bothered to care?” Kirk was finally out of steam.

 

“Jim, I…” McCoy looked at his friend, shocked and horrified but unable to say anything to defend himself.

 

Kirk turned on his heel and left, leaving the doctor, a frozen Chekhov, a silently crying Uhura and a stunned Sulu behind. They all looked at Spock in silence.

 

“I’m so sorry, doctor,” Sulu offered as the three bridge officers filed out of the room a couple of minutes later.

 

McCoy felt utterly defeated. He had never felt more useless and guilty in his life.

 

Wordlessly, he pulled up a chair next to Spock’s bed and prepared to keep watch for the night.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

As soon as he was out of sickbay, Kirk regretted every single one of his words. He briefly thought about going back to apologize to McCoy but could not bring himself to do it. Of course McCoy had done his best. He always had and he always would. And it certainly wasn’t his fault that Spock had fallen down the turbolift shaft. On the contrary, had it not been for McCoy, they might never have found Spock. If the whole situation was anyone’s fault, it was his own for stupidly hitting his head so hard he needed to be carried off the bridge like an infant. _And now I'm behaving_   _like an infant_ , he thought glumly.

 

When Kirk looked up, he realized he had reached his quarters. Suddenly very tired, he sat down on his bed thinking, _I’ll just close my eyes for two minutes and then I’ll go and apologize to Bones_. Still not fully recovered from his own ordeal that day, he fell asleep almost immediately.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

McCoy kept staring at the monitor above Spock’s bed. If only Spock would go into a healing trance. B _ut his body must be too weak for that_ , McCoy thought, plus those ribs were still lodged in his lung and McCoy knew healing trances were not magic (or Vulcan voodoo as he liked to call it). They could address tissue damage and broken bones, but not reposition broken ribs. He sighed. Jim’s outburst was still eating at him. _Had_ he really done his best? Yes. And yet, Jim was right. His best was not good enough. This was not good enough. If only he had managed to fix the ribs, and if only there was a way to help the healing trance alo…”

 

McCoy jumped out of his chair like a man possessed. Hadn’t there been an article in the _Journal of Xenobiology_ a while back? Hadn’t he kept the whole damn data disk just to read that one?

 

McCoy hurried to his office and began rummaging through the “read later” pile of disks in the bottom drawer of his desk. How long ago had it been? Six months, a year, two years? There, that could be the one. Fingers shaking he inserted the tape into his the computer and skimmed the table of contents. _Bingo_.

 

He forced himself to read the article slowly, taking in every sentence. _Inducing the Vulcan Healing Trance with the Help of the Compound Drug Cxyro-Pelamine_. The gist of the article was that experiments with Cxyro-Pelamine, a notoriously difficult to balance drug, had shown that, in the correct individual strength and dosage, the drug gave a Vulcan normally too far gone to go into the healing trance an energy boost, thus inducing said trance. Side effects included shorter and less effective trance states and increased difficulty coming out of the trance.

 

McCoy skipped back to the section on the chemical make-up of Cxyro-Pelamine, calculating how he would have to adapt it to Spock's physiology. Then he headed to the lab.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

After two hours in the lab, McCoy help up the vial of Cxyro-Pelamine, checking the dosage. The test subjects in the article had been full Vulcans, Spock was only half Vulcan and McCoy hoped that he had adapted the formula correctly. McCoy did know, however, that what he was about to do was completely unethical. He had neither the consent of his patient, nor of his next of kin, and he was basically experimenting on him. But McCoy also knew that this was probably the best chance Spock had. _The best I can do_ , McCoy thought bitterly.

 

He had it all planned. Because this was so damn irregular, we would not call a nurse to assist him. That way, if things went south, he would be the only one to blame. Once he had injected the drug, he would have to act quickly to fix Spock’s ribs, then all he could to was pray.

 

McCoy swallowed hard and concentrated. “Here we go, Spock,” he mumbled, injecting the hypo into his friend’s jugular. Then, he opened the sterile field and went to work on Spock’s ribs and lung as quickly as possible, all the while watching Spock’s life signs. Almost immediately, Spock’s heart rate rose, then suddenly dropped dramatically, first to 30 beats per minute – unbelievably low for a Vulcan - and then, just to freak McCoy out completely, to 20 and finally to 12.

 

Just when McCoy was about to get the cardio stimulator, he noticed that the bleeding around the damaged lung tissue was decreasing. The healing trance! And the heart rate was beginning to pick up too. Well, wasn’t it just like the green-blooded hobgoblin to scare him half to death and wait till the very last minute to finally do what he was supposed to do? Bones was grinning from side to side as he closed Spock’s rib cage.

 

He wanted to call Jim, but hesitated. The captain was hopefully asleep by now. God knows he needed it after the strain he had been under, both physically and mentally.

 

And so, after removing the surgery equipment, McCoy once again settled down next to the First Officer of the Enterprise, waiting.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Kirk awoke with a start. He was lying on his bed, fully dressed. Had he been dreaming that…“Sickbay to captain Kirk.” No, he had not been dreaming that McCoy was calling him. The captain jumped up immediately. “Kirk here.”

 

“Can you come to sickbay, captain?” _Captain_ , that stung. He supposed he deserved it after his outburst earlier. _Much_ earlier, he realized looking at the chronometer. Did I really sleep for 12 hours straight?, Kirk wondered. Aloud he said “On my way, doctor” and sprinted out of his quarters.

 

On his way to the turbolift (he would never the able to step into it with the old ease again), Kirk tried to figure out what the doctor’s voice had sounded like and what that meant for Spock. Was he better? Worse? Did McCoy just want to talk about what had happened the night before and this call had nothing to do with Spock at all? As he approached sickbay Kirk took a deep breath to brace himself for whatever it might be and for the apology he had to deliver. Best to come straight out with it, he thought as the doors to intensive care slid open.

 

“Bones, look about last night, I…” Kirk stopped in mid-sentence, gaping at the scene before him. Spock was more or less sitting up in bed, though his body kept bending to one side, and McCoy was trying to hold him up while simultaneously slapping him in the face.

 

“What the…” Kirk stammered uncomprehendingly.

 

“Jim, thank God. Get over here and help me! He went into a healing trance but he’s not coming out of it too well. Hold him up.”

 

Kirk circled around the bed so that he was standing on one side and McCoy on the other and grabbed his semi-conscious First Officer firmly by the arms to prevent him from flopping back onto the bed.

 

“His head, Jim. I need you to fixate his head.” Feeling like a bully who was holding a weaker kid for another bully to punch, Kirk stabilized Spock’s lolling head and McCoy swiftly delivered a strong slap to each of Spock’s cheeks. Kirk winced.

 

McCoy looked over at the captain, his mouth a thin line. “I don’t like it either, Jim, but if we don’t wake him up, we will lose him for sure.” Another slap. And another.

 

“I gave him an experimental drug to induce the healing trance and it worked like a charm,” McCoy panted between slaps, “but one of the side effects is that it’s harder to come out of the trance.” _Slap_ , _slap_. Spock’s cheeks were flushed light green.

 

After about 20 hard slaps, Kirk suddenly felt Spock’s muscles tensing and found he did not have to hold him quite as tightly anymore. Then, Spock’s eyes flew open and his hand shot out, stopping McCoy’s in mid-air.

 

“Thank you, doctor, that will be sufficient,” he pressed out, his voice strained.

 

“Thank God.” McCoy dropped back into his chair, exhausted, and Spock sunk back onto the pillows but kept his eyes open.

 

“Spock…” Kirk mumbled and instinctively grabbed his friend’s hand. When he did so, Spock winced in pain and Kirk drew his hand back, alarmed.

 

“Careful, Jim. That’s another side effect of the drug. The healing trance is incomplete. It only addresses the most severe of all injuries. I didn’t have time to repair his broken wrist and leg before we had to stop the surgery yesterday and it looks like his body didn’t prioritise these during the trance either.” McCoy waved his scanner over Spock. “No more internal bleeding, your head and lungs are fine too, but I still need to treat those breaks, the superficial wounds and the exhaustion of course. How’s the pain, Spock?”

 

“It’s manageable, thank you, doctor,” Spock said, exhaling slowly and closing his eyes.

 

“So, translated from stubborn green-blooded hobgoblin into English, this means you’re still in excruciating pain and just want to sleep, am I right?”

 

Spock did not argue.

 

“I’m going to give you a painkiller and a sedative, Spock, and when you’re asleep I’ll fix your leg and wrist and the cuts and scrapes, ok?”

 

Spock simply nodded.

 

While he worked, McCoy filled Kirk in on the events of the previous night.

 

“I almost missed him starting to wake up,” McCoy finished his story. The trance was so deep he was hardly able to utter a sound. When I did notice, I knew I’d need help so I called you. Should have probably just called a nurse… I probably woke you up, didn’t I?”

 

“Bones, I’m so glad you called me,” Kirk said earnestly. “I still can’t believe you saved him. Will he really be ok?”

 

“I don’t see why not, Jim. He’ll need a lot of rest and I want to keep him for observation the next couple of days, but the worst is over. It’s all over.”

 

Kirk and McCoy smiled at each other and then lapsed into silence, waiting for Spock to wake up again on his own, each lost in his own thoughts.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Kirk could not help thinking how lucky he was. Lucky to have Spock as a friend, who had saved his life, lucky to have McCoy who had then saved Spock, lucky that Spock, who yesterday had been at the brink of death, was now sleeping peacefully, and lucky that Bones did not seem to bear a grudge towards him for all he had said the night before. Now would be a good time to apologize, had the doctor not closed his eyes. Kirk suspected he was asleep.

 

Doctor Leonard McCoy was not asleep. Just resting his eyes. Well, maybe he had been asleep for a little while – not surprising, really, after how much he had worked in the last 24 hours – but now he was very much awake. He kept his eyes closed as he was thinking about how lucky he was. He was lucky to have friends like Spock and Kirk, who trusted him and whom he trusted and who would always come when he called. Lucky also that Spock was Vulcan and could survive more than any human ever could. He hoped he’d be lucky enough to have Spock forgive him once he found out that McCoy had almost forgotten about him in the mess of yesterday’s incident.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When Spock opened his eyes, he found the captain and Dr McCoy asleep in chairs on either side of his bed. He felt rested though still somewhat weak. _The human expression_ , Spock thought, _is, I believe, to be lucky_. Yes, he was lucky to have friends who kept watch by his bedside, lucky that they had found him in the turbolift shaft, lucky that McCoy was a skilled doctor and lucky that Jim was here with him even though Spock had failed him. Spock drew in a sharp breath at the memory of dropping Jim, possibly injuring him further, and promptly woke up the two humans.

 

“Spock,” McCoy was on his feet immediately. “Are you alright?”

 

“Quite alright, doctor, thank you.”

 

For a few moments no one spoke, then all three of them spoke simultaneously.

 

“I’m sorry, Spock.” – “Bones, I’m really sorry.” – “I apologize, captain.”

 

They looked at one another in astonishment, then the two humans started laughing and Spock raised an eyebrow.

 

When their laughter had subsided, McCoy asked: “What in the world do you have to apologize for, Spock? You just spent the better part of a day unconscious and before that you performed some goddamn heroics that landed you here in the first place.” 

 

Spock once again raised an eyebrow at McCoy’s comment, then turned to Kirk, his face a perfect Vulcan mask, but his eyes betraying his pain.

 

“I dropped you, Jim,” he whispered, casting his eyes down. “I dropped you while you were unconscious and I could have seriously harmed you. Even though you’re the captain, I evacuated you last, because…” Spock uncharacteristically faltered. “Because I knew while you were still on the bridge I would always go back. I would never leave you… But I overestimated my capabilities and my mistake could have cost you your life. I am sorry, Jim.”

 

Spock raised his eyes to meet Kirk’s and saw a tear sliding down Kirk’s cheek.

 

“You didn’t harm me, Spock, you _saved_ me. You saved all of us; me, Uhura, Sulu and Chekhov. I can never thank you enough, so stop worrying about it. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

 

“But you know who was almost not fine, Spock?,” McCoy burst out, “ _you_. You almost died and if I had realized earlier that you were lying on top of that dammed turbolift, that you were not walking around somewhere like I had assumed, if I had treated you sooner… Damn it, Spock, what I’m saying is, I’m sorry…”

 

“You could not have known, doctor,” Spock interrupted him. “It is illogical to expect yourself to deduce what you never had any information on, yet impressive that you eventually did deduce it.”

 

“So what you’re saying, Spock,” McCoy huffed, “is that when I feel bad it’s illogical, but when you feel guilty about what happened with Jim, that’s perfectly reasonable? By the way, you know I will have to tease you endlessly for what you said about never leaving him and always going back for him, right?” McCoy’s eyes twinkled with amusement.

 

“The same, doctor, is true for your person,” Spock replied completely earnestly. “I would never leave you either and I would always go back for you, too.”

 

“Oh.” That shut McCoy up. He felt a sudden wave of affection for the Vulcan and had to swallow a lump in his throat.

 

“Gentlemen,” Kirk said into the ensuing silence. “I think I am the only one here who really has something to apologize for. Bones, I should not have screamed at you and I didn’t mean what I said. But that’s not an excuse for saying it. I’m sorry, Bones.”

 

“Water under the bridge, Jim.” McCoy smiled at him. “And now, can we please stop with the heartfelt apologies and go back to normal? Especially you, Spock. Bit emotional for an emotionless Vulcan, aren’t you?” McCoy teased.

 

“I was merely stating facts, doctor. You, on the other hand, have a remarkable and illogical propensity for finding fault with your own person except in circumstances when it would serve you well to address your actual rather than your perceived shortcomings.”

 

“And what shortcomings are that, Mr Spock?,” growled McCoy, taking the bait. “You know I can have you confined to sickbay for the rest of the month if I feel like it.”

 

“Case in point, doctor - to employ one of your colloquialisms. Your temper is certainly one in a very long list of failings.”

 

Kirk laughed as McCoy shot back: “Failings, I will show you failings. I will fail to clear you for duty for the next week. Both of you!”

 

“Bones…”, Kirk protested.

 

“ _Both_ of you. And now _rest_!”

 

The doctor stormed out of the room, hiding the smile on his face. Yes, all was back to normal.


End file.
